


Game On

by Mab (Mab_Browne)



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, Episode: s04e02 Murder 101, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-21
Updated: 2013-02-21
Packaged: 2017-11-30 00:31:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/693288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mab_Browne/pseuds/Mab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blair's not coping so well after the events of Sentinel Too and Murder 101.</p><p>Posted December 2008 at 852 Prospect</p>
            </blockquote>





	Game On

**Author's Note:**

> Original notes from 852 are in the body of the work.

  
Many thanks are owed to Celia for her generous donation to Moonridge, and for her decision to waive the full ownership period.  
Thank you also to Jen, EE and Elaine for helping to make this story a *lot* better.

* * *

'Well, my head realizes that just 'cause you're right, doesn't mean you always get what you want. You can't get mad at anybody. You just got to play the game better than they do.' Blair Sandburg, in 'Murder 101'. 

* * *

The words on the screen look like chicken scratches, about as legible and about as important. I don't know where my head is this evening. I do know where my eyes are. They're burning because I did an absent minded professor this morning and left my glasses at home even though I had a hard day's work ahead in the fields of academia. Putting them on at the end of the day to do the evening's work on the laptop just does not cut it. 

There's a cup of coffee on the table to the right hand side of the laptop. I may not have a sentinel's sense of smell or taste but I can tell some things. "This is decaf," I say, once I've swallowed. 

Jim looks down at me; he's trying for that once familiar expression of indulgent exasperation, but it's a struggle. He pointedly checks his watch. "That's because it's 11.47 pm, genius." 

"I know, man. You see, there's this little clock right on the screen here. Very useful." The old banter doesn't come as easily as it used to these days. 

"Yeah, sure. I'm heading to bed. See you in the morning." He's gone, without a question, and without ever having tried to walk around behind me to look at the screen or my notes. Jim's playing by the rules, now. I watch him walk his fine by-the-book ass up the stairs to his room, and take a few more sips of coffee. 

By the book. Huh. My dissertation advisor called today to remind me about the meeting for tomorrow. She's having a few issues - with just about everything. I look at the screen and my eyes burn with more than just tiredness. The stupid thing is that I wish I could talk to Jim about this. Not the content so much, as the academic game playing, and the schmoozing; and the sheer frustration and fear that this thing, which we've invested the last three years of our lives in, is not going to play out how I want. God, the information, the discoveries, are incredible. But the dissertation itself... I push the laptop away and lean my head on my arms upon the table. 

Jim doesn't want the dissertation to be all about him. I get that. Guess that's why I welcomed Alex with open arms, and look where that led us. I wish, so badly, that I could figure out a game plan that could get both us what we want. I wish that I could figure out what the hell it is that we do want. I wish a lot of things. I lift my head and save and shut down the file. 

* * *

He's watching me. Again. Sometimes his eyes are hooded, lids drooping to hide any emotion shining out from that handsome face, blank as a carved-bone statue. Sometimes he frowns, because he's baffled or angry. Yeah. Join the club, Jim. I make him angry, and we all know that anger is an expression of fear. I guess I gave him something to be scared about, even if it was only on a small scale. I was scared too, on a small scale. It's perfectly rational to be nervous about jumping from a freaking helicopter into a large body of water. It's dangerous. You can drown. But you can drown in small bodies of water too, and it's not like either I or Mother Hen Ellison have forgotten that. 

We trudge on into the loft, and I can still feel his eyes, boring into the middle of my back. 

"Could you quit giving me the evil eye, Jim? And by the way, the Department owes me for a pair of shoes." I pushed them off in the water. If I could have dragged off my jeans I'd have done that too, but Brad Ventriss was a distraction. 

"I'm not giving you the evil eye, Sandburg," Jim says. His voice is tight and weary. 

"I beg to differ, man. Between that and the riot act you read me at the station, I've had enough for one day." 

"If I read you the riot act it's because you scared the shit out of me. What was keeping that little psycho from trying to drown you, huh?" 

"Didn't know you cared." Unfair, that's unfair, I know that it is, and so does he, and his face sharpens in anger. A jagged arc of feeling flashes between us and Jim takes a step forward and I think, this is it, he's going to hit me. Then I see the way that his face twists as he looks at me, the narrowed, startled eyes and I think holy shit, he's going to kiss me. I don't even care which one it is. Bring it on, man, I'm ready for you. But then he pulls himself up short and instead of grounding itself in all the shit of the last few weeks, the connection is gone, into thin air. Instead of that sharp sensation everything's constrained again, like there's a black, soggy blanket tangled around the loft; smothering us both. 

Jim turns around and heads for the stairs. "I'm tired, Chief. Think I'll hit the sack." 

Sure, Jim, why not? You hit the sack at, let's see now, 7:52:06 every night, sure you do. Jim's shoulders are stiff, like he's carrying something heavy and he's worried that everything will come tumbling down the stairs behind him if he moves the wrong way, and all of a sudden I hurt for him. I feel like someone's hammered nails into the joints of my jaw, and my heart feels like a piece of stone, I hurt so much. Dying isn't exactly cool, but it's not much fun being the one left behind either. I know that in my head. I just wish I could help, Jim; I really do. I've been telling you that I can fix you for years, arrogant shit that I am. But right now I can't even fix myself. 

* * *

Back to school today, to talk to Chancellor Edwards, in company with Benny from the Community Law centre because it's not like I can actually afford a lawyer. Me? Money? I don't think so. But I do have the Sandburg network. I know a lot of people, and I know how to play the game when I haven't been blind-sided by meetings arranged at short notice with no information as to agenda. (And how pissy am I that the shorter route to the main building from the free parking is past the fountain outside Hargrove, and I still took the longer route? Pretty pissy.) 

Benny had some interesting things to say to Chancellor Edwards about that meeting that the Ventriss's lawyer set up. I believe that 'set up' was exactly the phrase that Benny used, along with interesting quotes from Rainier's very own Human Resources guidelines about notice and review and due warning of default. Benny's wearing his Metallica t-shirt, and it's kind of hard not to be dangerously amused by that, and by Edwards's obvious offense at the level of 'fuck you' involved. Me - I decided that it was a day for chinos and a button-down shirt that wasn't plaid. 

So, I've got my job back. The plans to review my participation in Rainier's doctorate program have been shelved. Edwards hates my guts and I should really be smarter about showing her that I don't give a shit about that. If I ever had an agenda for a long-term career at Rainier, that was off the table as of - well, shit - as of blowing off Eli's offer to go to Borneo. Must be something about trips to Central and South America with James Ellison that screw with my brain. There's something about Jim that screws with my brain full stop. It's a theory. I'm good with those. Usually. 

I head home to an empty, quiet loft. I could stay up late and wait for Jim to come in so I could tell him the good news, that I've won, but I'm tired again, to tell the truth. So, so tired, tired enough to sleep for a million years. 

* * *

Here I am, moseying in to the PD, just like everything's normal. There's Jim, sitting at his desk, just like everything's normal, and somehow we fall into this Leave It To Beaver routine, and it's awful, it's absolutely, totally awful. We're shouting at each other from two opposite cliffs, trying to tell each other something important, and our words are lost in the wind and the distance. 

When we get down to the garage, Jim opens the door of the truck for me. Wow. Between the comedy and the courtesy - greater love hath no man. (Than that he bring back a friend from the dead and then refuse to say one fucking word about it. One - fucking - word.) 

"Your face is definitely looking better." 

"That'll be a relief to everyone, especially you. What was all that crap anyway? Paper bags and scaring children and shit?" Trust me to break the mood. We were playing together so nicely, too. 

At least Jim doesn't pretend that he doesn't know what I was talking about. He shrugs. 

"I don't know, Chief. Guess I'm used to you being the pretty one in this partnership." 

Whoa! I really don't want to know what the hell that means. 

Actually, total lie. I think that I already know. I know Jim; I know him in good moods and bad moods. I know him when he's being a great guy, a sweet guy, and I know him when he's being an asshole (god, do I know him when he's being an asshole). That should have been your basic smart ass remark to the short, fresh-faced, sidekick civilian, certainly could have been the usual 'stay in your place' bullshit, except that Jim's ears have turned red. All of a sudden Jim is not looking at me, not at all, no sir, and he's extra cautious as he checks the traffic, like there's something out there that might be about to ambush him. 

It won't be me. I've just seen the man trap himself into what he obviously thinks is a revealing comment. Honour is satisfied. Curiosity is not. Caution (not one of my regular visitors) is hunkering down behind the barricades, because, damn, we have enough to deal with right now without wading through the swamp of that unacknowledged but definitely there homo-erotic tension thing that we seem to have going. Sometimes. On the days ending with a 'Y' that Jim hasn't been making out like Charlie Sheen with inappropriate women such as my would-be murderer. 

* * *

There is no Miller's Pond in Cascade. Surprise, surprise. The body is on the beach at Marker Bay and as we walk down from the road I realise that I didn't think about what it would mean to see a dead body in situ. At the beach. By the water. But it's not a drowning, they wouldn't call Major Crimes out for a drowning, would they? Unless it's some bigshot with a connection to the mayor (and god, there's probably a highly unflattering paper there somewhere about patterns of influence). I'm wishing really hard that I didn't have to be here, walking down the dunes with the glitter of the sun off the water in my eyes. 

"He was shot, Chief." That's all Jim says, but I can breathe again all of a sudden. 

"Just a normal day in Cascade, then," I mutter. 

How can he do that? How can he notice whatever he notices and be right about what's needed to fix it, and refuse to even notice the really big, _huge_ other things that we desperately need to fix? Totally a normal day in Cascade. 

The dead guy's lying at the end of the tide-line, on his back. He's young, my age; he's Asian and his hair, lank and cut just above his shoulders, lies like seaweed over the dead-fish pallor of his face. He's wearing what might have been a nice suit once, but it's stained and shapeless after a night spent on the fringe of the tide. 

We do the 'how's things' with the uniform guys already there. Some of the forensic staff are wandering up the beach, just looking. Jim kneels to look at the body. His eyes close as he takes a slow breath through his nose, and I wonder what that's like - to smell a body like that, to analyse it. 

"Anyone moved him?" Jim asks, his eyes doing their share of the assessment now. 

"Just as we found him." 

Jim turns to me and says conversationally, "I think that he was shot here. Presumably by someone he knew. Entry's from the front. If the sea hadn't been washing over him there'd have been a lot more blood in the sand. It's a big calibre bullet." 

I feel queasy, no more than I can handle, but - still. We go walking in the wake of the forensic staff. It's full light and pretty busy now as the city organisation kicks in around that sad piece of meat behind us. Different to the last time that Jim and I walked across a beach, and god, I hate it that that my mind picks that moment as the watershed. Not dying and coming back, but watching Jim with Alex, seeing her in his arms, remembering us both fumbling to understand how the hell he could do that. How could you do that, Jim? 

Work's done for here. We walk back up the dunes; there's sand caught in my shoes and it's annoying. Jim puts a hand on my shoulder, and that's annoying too. 

"You okay, Chief?" The sun casts shadows that harshen and weight his face. 

"Fine, fine, man. Can we stop at the top to empty out my shoes?" 

"I've got a sand bucket's worth of the stuff dragging at my feet, too. I guess we can do that." He smiles at me, but it's unsure. His smiles used to last longer. Granted, I used to smile back at him more, too. 

I know the game. It's an old one, and once upon a time I wouldn't have played. Let's pretend that everything is okay, and that there's nothing that we need to say to each other. Let's pretend that right now there's only the two of us standing by Jim's truck, shaking the sand out of our shoes, and let's see how long we can play, before the rules change for us both. Because they will. I know it. 

God, I hope so. 

* * *

End 

Game On by Mab: [mabinbrowne@hotmail.com](mailto:mabinbrowne@hotmail.com)  



End file.
